Anand beats Bacrot to finish second

October 30, 2010 20:31 IST

World champion Viswanathan Anand pulled off a fine victory over Etienne Bacrot of France to finish second in the Pearl Spring Chess tournament in Nanjing on Saturday.

Anand, whose party in the tournament was spoiled by Bacrot in the fourth round earlier, won a satisfying revenge game to finish on a high after mid-way hiccups in this super tournament between six players.

Magnus Carlsen of Norway played out a hard-fought draw with Vugar Gashimov of Azerbaijan to win the title with a full point margin.

The Norwegian star finished with seven points in all and regained the number one ranking in the world in unofficial live ratings after losing it to Anand a couple of weeks back.

Anand finished clear second on six points and also stands to gain important ELO rating points from his performance that will keep him over 2800 rating mark.

The Indian ace was displaying top form till he lost to Bacrot from a drawn ending in the tournament and following that, did not press much with white in the fifth round against Gashimov. It might have looked a much closer contest if Anand had drawn the game against the Frenchman.

After a fine show despite being the lowest rated player in the 250000 Euros prize money tournament, Bacrot had to be satisfied with a third place finish on five points.

In the other game of a the day, former world champion Veselin Topalov of Bulgaria pulled off a sensational victory against Wang Yue of China from a lost position to finish on 4.5 points.

Topalov and Gashimov tied for the fourth spot on 4.5 points apiece and after spoiling his won position, Wang finished last on three points in all.

Anand gave a lesson to Bacrot from a topical position in the Nimzo Indian defense wherein the former played white.

Bacrot, an exponent of the system, was completely at loggerheads in the middle game and went for some unwarranted complexities that gave Anand an undisputed advantage.

Anand won a pawn on the queenside with his immaculate technique after trading the queens and the rest was just child's play for the world champion.

Many experts believed that Carlsen will take things easy as he had won the tournament with one round to spare but they were all in for a surprise as the Norwegian went for a full bloodied battle against Gashimov.

The Azeri, however, kept his guard to get a draw after 71 moves.

Topalov employed the Grunfeld defense but got in to a worse position in the ensuing middle game. Wang, however, blundered back and gave the point to the Bulgarian on a platter.